Tuesday, February 12, 2008

it's a zen thing

dyingwas never really the issue....where do you find deathin the midst of so much motion?slowing down to look and seewould be a death all it's own,for if the motion stopsi'm not really certain of whatwill be left-are you?it seems i have leftsmall pieces of mealong the way-erosion was inevitable,almost desirable,like dropping ballastto rise above the storm....never really certain ofcoming down againafter the thunder stilled.

i wrote this poem years ago, after one of several stints in detox. i knew then i was losing.....my way, my sanity, my life. my whole existence became centered down on one thing....going fast at any cost. i was trying to stay one step ahead of the darkness, and losing ground every day. betsy said to me "you want to die"..... it was a statement now, no longer a question.

i didn't die. at some point, i chose to live.

now, if there is any desperation in my life, it is simply to find the quiet places. i soak up silence like a sponge. i have dark days, but there is always, always light on the other side....... peace, after the thunder stills.

i have these moments now, split seconds where time stops, freezes in place, before moving on. they catch me unaware. i never expect them.

i get them chopping wood. when i take a second swing of the axe, and it lands precisely in the notch created by the first swing, there is one moment of perfect silence before the whole becomes two, and the log falls away.....energy from my arms, to the wood. connected.

sometimes they happen when i shoot my bow. i shoot instinctively, without aiming. i simply raise and draw my bow, softening my vision in an attempt to feel the target rather than see it. i miss alot, but more and more there are those shots that hit exactly where my heart saw, with a sharp sound of certainty, and not a quiver of the fletchings.....energy from my arms, to the arrow. connected.

i sometimes wonder at the miracle of these moments, and how i got here from that day so long ago, so lost.

i wrote this poem a few months after the first...... in rehab, finally, to stay. someone looked at the two poems together, and said "they aren't done. you need to finish them. there is more to this story".

it has taken a long time to find the ending to that story. it is better called a beginning though, because it is about promise, and progress, and pleasure in those single moments of time. i have come full circle.....

Your comments about chopping wood reminded me of my chopping days and about Robert Frost's story about it. Thought you might enjoy parts of it too.......

TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIMEOut of the mud two strangers came And caught me splitting wood in the yard, And one of them put me off my aim By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!" I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind And let the other go on a way. I knew pretty well what he had in mind: He wanted to take my job for pay.Good blocks of oak it was I split, As large around as the chopping block; And every piece I squarely hit Fell splinterless as a cloven rock. The blows that a life of self-control Spares to strike for the common good, That day, giving a loose my soul, I spent on the unimportant wood.………...The time when most I loved my task The two must make me love it more By coming with what they came to ask. You'd think I never had felt before The weight of an ax-head poised aloft, The grip of earth on outspread feet, The life of muscles rocking soft And smooth and moist in vernal heat.Out of the wood two hulking tramps (From sleeping God knows where last night, But not long since in the lumber camps). They thought all chopping was theirs of right. Men of the woods and lumberjacks, The judged me by their appropriate tool. Except as a fellow handled an ax They had no way of knowing a fool.Nothing on either side was said. They knew they had but to stay their stay And all their logic would fill my head: As that I had no right to play With what was another man's work for gain. My right might be love but theirs was need. And where the two exist in twain Theirs was the better right--agreed.But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future's sakes.